My daughter was sitting next to the driveway on our front lawn reading. I tried to sneak up on her in the car but she looked up at the last minute smiled and said"the leaves gave you away. I could hear them crunching under the tires" Last weekend I was driving through an apple orchard. As I passed a little girl with her dad I overheard her say "Daddy, that gold car isn't making any noise!" I was going to stop and correct her and tell her my car wasn't gold but Driftwood but wasn't sure if a three year old would appreciate the subtle difference.
The leaves are changing here in Northern Chicagoland and some of the subdivisions are absolutely beautiful. Additionally, the timing is about right so that the sun is just perched above the horizon as I'm getting close to home. All that adds up to rolling down all the windows, shutting off the radio, and stealthing around for about five to ten minutes. It's a state of Zen with the houses and the trees and the quiet. But what really makes it is the pedestrians. They walk along and I come up slowly behind them. Often, they do hear the tires on the road or something that gives me away and they turn around. As I pass, I wave and say (not yell) "good evening" as they just stare at the silence.
